🔗 Share this article

At first glance, this album might appear closer to a challenging university quiz than a new popular music project by an artist whose previous hit featured a global pop icon. Split across four different movements and performed in thirteen tongues, we have a dizzying classical-tinged opus exploring female mystery, religious transcendence, and physical transformation, often by way of the lens of various women saints. The end of a relationship—a theme treated with raw openness on another major 2025 album—soars heavenward here, buoyed by the lush presence of a full symphony orchestra and input from an award-winning composer within a long list of collaborators. Its sheer ambition by itself renders the efforts of other pop stars look rather laughable.

Transcending Scholarly Pretense

The fact that this album succeeds in avoid overly intellectual chin-stroking feels nothing short of miraculous, with complete credit belonging to Rosalía. While it's not the first time project to fuse historical sounds and modern styles, its ambitions feel much greater here, and the balancing act more pronounced. What really elevates her fourth release, beyond its multilayered tunes, rich arrangements, and engrained theatricality, proves to be a core spirit of fun. Similar to the iconic Björk at her peak, you find a captivating sense to Rosalía's singing that pulls you up in its tornado. When she's tearing your heart apart, the listener still desire to be right there through the journey.

A Prime Example of Joy

That playful spirit comes forth clearly on a stunning Italian song about Saint Clare. It luxuriates in a sorrowful melancholy over several minutes. Suddenly, all the music falls away, and we hear a spontaneous laugh followed by a declaration before a comically exaggerated string crescendo thuds down like cartoonish impact. The track then shifts into the frenetic track featuring racing strings, a powerful choral group, and a cameo appearance from the artist Björk.

"The charm with this album is that you rarely quite understand—or even want to predict—where it is going next."

Almost each track finishes in a totally distinct place than where it began. One moment explores the transient nature of celebrity with a delicate orchestration only to collapsing in digital cacophony. Another, a cut echoing the artist's earlier trap-infused work starts off dark and brooding, featuring prowling vocals, before fluttering traditional rhythms and a heavenly choir enter to soften its rough corners.

The Bridge Between Art & Pop

A key balancing act of Lux is straddling the gap between radical innovation and broad appeal. It is no coincidence that the album has achieved the artist's first release to break into the upper reaches of key charts: its heart contains a collection of truly catchy pop songs. A song performed entirely in the English language swells on a chorus that seems to collect increasingly infectious melodies while it spirals skyward. This trick gets repeated by a different powerful ballad that expands and contracts, intertwining multiple tunes as a complex weave.

• A waltz-like song charms via its playful, Disney-adjacent drama and a chant-along hook.
• In its words, it aligns with pop culture impact of contemporary breakup anthems, lambasting an ex- lover labeled an "psychological terrorist".
• Across these tracks, the singing have a painted-on edge, like a storybook character hiding a blade: "Gold medal in being a motherfucker / You've won the trophy of letdown."

A Maximalist Banquet for the Soul

This album represents popular music on a grand scale, a hungry reach for capital-A Art amid of looming artificial blankness. It rejects solipsism in favor of sublime transcendence, creating a dramatic drama that masterfully controls its own built-in ridiculousness. This is a deep source of buried gems that takes time to completely explore but doesn't feels like a chore. While some big pop albums of 2025 felt like feasting on meal, Lux offers a sumptuous feast where the guests at it, perhaps intoxicated on holy drink, flutter between discussions about ancient figures, the galvanizing feeling of heartbreaking grief, and common stories about hopeless men. It is a modern-day theatrical production from pop's most endlessly inventive visionary.